ND EPSCOR STATE Conference
Save the date! October 21 at NDSU
2025 Annual ND EPSCOR STATE Conference
About the conference
ND EPSCoR invites all faculty, students, and postdoctoral fellows from North Dakota (ND) institutions of higher education to attend our 2025 ND EPSCoR Annual State Conference. This one-day, statewide conference to be held at the NDSU Memorial Union in Fargo on October 21, 2025, is intended for all ND faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, and STEM professionals. The conference's focus is to provide opportunities to share research results and promote opportunities for collaboration in STEM fields. We encourage presentations and posters on topics related to fundamental and applied research, broader impacts, broadening participation, K-20 STEM education, and workforce development. We encourage faculty who are newcomers to EPSCoR programs to engage to learn more about statewide collaboration opportunities.
Please email ndepscor@ndus.edu with questions about the conference.
Call for Speakers and Poster Presentations
Abstracts for oral or poster presentations on any STEM topic including research, broader impacts, broadening participation, workforce development, and education may be submitted by undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty from any educational institution in ND. Abstract submissions from researchers and students supported by the NSF RII Track-1 project, ND-ACES, other NSF EPSCoR Programs (i.e., TCUP, Track-2, and Track-4), and EPSCoR-like programs are highly encouraged.
Abstract Format and Submission Details
Abstracts are to be less than 250 words and submitted through the NDSU Submission Portal.
The deadline for submission is September 10, 2025.
Abstract submission needs to contain a title (15-word limit), author(s) with title(s) and affiliation(s), the individual presenting identified, and the abstract text (not to exceed 250 words with spaces)
Notification of selected abstracts will be provided by September 17, 2025. The notification will include details on conference registration, and presentation formats for both oral and poster presentations. Selected presenters must register for the conference by the registration deadline or risk having their presentation removed from the program.
Travel arrangements
Participants can reserve rooms at the Canad Inn at the state rate of $96.30. The room block is called “EPSCoR State Conference.” Reservations can be made by calling the Canad Inn at (701) 772-8404 or 888-332-2623. Individual state employees will need to provide their tax exempt number at time of reservation. The room block will be available until October 28.
UND, NDSU, & ND-ACES are sponsoring a pre-conference networking seminar on bio and biomedical computation before the ND EPSCoR Annual Conference.
This evening networking seminar is to be held at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks on November 20, 2024, from 5 pm to 8 pm, and is intended for all ND faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. Appetizers will be provided. The event will include two rounds of oral presentations, a poster session, and a networking session.
2024 Annual State Conference Presentations
2024 Annual State Conference Presentations
Dr. Rebecca Heise
Dr. Andy Nonaka
Dr. Jose Colom-Ustariz
TCU panel: Nurturing STEM and Research at ND Tribal Colleges and Universities
ANnual conference Agenda
7:30 AM
Check-in, light breakfast, hang posters
8:30 AM
Conference opening and land acknowledgement
9:00 AM
Plenary Speaker Dr. Rebecca Heise, Department chair of biomedical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), on Lung-derived Extracellular Matrix Materials for Disease Modeling and Drug Delivery
10:00 AM
10 minute break
10:10 AM
Dr. Andy Nonaka, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, invited speaker on The AMReX Software Framework for Extreme Scale Modeling and Simulation
10:40 AM
NSF EPSCoR Program Director Dr. Jose Colom-Ustariz
11:10 AM
10 minute break
12:20 PM
Lunch and TCU panel: Nurturing STEM and Research at ND Tribal Colleges and Universities
Moderator: Sheridan McNeil, ND EPSCoR Director of Tribal Partnerships
1:50 PM
Poster Session A (even numbered posters)
3:35 PM
Poster Session B (odd numbered posters)
5:05 PM
Closing remarks
concurrent presentation session 1
11:20 AM
ND-ACES and Related Research (Ballroom #1)
Moderated by Kalpana Katti
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Savannah Brown, UND, Evaluation of Schlafen Family Proteins in Triple Negative Breast Cancer
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Connor Edvall, NDSU, Synergistic Delivery of Encapsulated Drugs to Hypoxia for Stemness Reduction in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
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Shrinwanti Ghosh, NDSU, 3D in-vitro Model: Platform for Evaluating Anticancer-Drugs Targeting Organ-Specific TME in Primary & Metastatic Breast-cancer
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Rayat Hossain, NDSU, Azobenzene-Incorporated Polymersomes for Control of Targeted Drug Delivery to Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Research Track A (Ballroom #2)
Moderated by Amanda Hagge
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Jeremy Straub, NDSU, Overview of AI Development Efforts and the Opportunities They Provide
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Boampong Asare, United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), Analyzing Epsilon Effects on Exact and Composite Solutions via Matched Asymptotic Expansion
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Benu Bansal, UND, Nested Named Entity Recognition using Multilayer BERT-based Model
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Ali Pakbaz, NDSU, Numerical Analysis on the Design of an Evaporator for a PV/microchannel Direct-Expansion CO2 Heat Pump
Research Track B (Ballroom #3)
Moderated by Colin Combs
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Wayne Seames, UND, An Introduction to the NSF EPSCoR RII Track 2 Project: Sustainable Engineering Infrastructures and Solutions for Tribal Energy Sovereignty (TES)
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Corey Smith, UND, A Data Science Summer Program for Tribal College Students: The Virtual Indigenous Data Science Academy
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Igor Ovchinnikov, UND, Paleomitogenomics and the Holocene population demography of the Northern Plains bison
TCU Panel
Nurturing STEM and Research at ND Tribal Colleges and Universities (Ballroom #5)
Moderated by Sheridan McNeil, Director of Tribal Partnerships, ND EPSCoR
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Austin Allard, Engineering Instructor, Turtle Mountain College
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Emily Biggane, Research Faculty, United Tribes Technical College
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Leander R. McDonald, President, United Tribes Technical College
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Tomi Kay Phillips, President, Sitting Bull College
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Brent Voels, Science Instructor, Cankdeska Cikana Community College
concurrent presentation session 2
2:35 PM
ND-ACES and Related Research (Ballroom #1)
Moderated by Yen Lee Loh
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Hanmant Gaikwad, NDSU, Evaluating the Role of Na-Montmorillonite Clay in Biomineralization and Stem Cell Osteogenesis in Nanoclay Scaffolds
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Khwaja Hossain, Mayville State University, The Development of Plant Polymer Scaffolds for the Growth and Development of Triple-negative Breast Cancer Cells
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Archana Dhasarathy, UND, Epigenetic priming during the Epithelial-mesenchymal transition
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Shubhashri Ambhore, NDSU, Peptide conjugated hypoxia-responsive nanoparticles to decrease triple-negative breast cancer stemness
Research Track A (Ballroom #2)
Moderated by Emily Biggane
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Manohar Sah, UTTC, Ethnomathematical Practices of the Tharu Community in Nepal
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Katherine McCarville, Minot State University, Implications of new luminescence (OSL) dates from sediments beneath a giant erratic boulder on the Iowan Surface, northeast Iowa
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Ram Hona, UTTC, Oxygen Deficient Perovskite as a Catalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction
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Thomas Stach, NDSU, Adsorption of H2S and SO2 on SiO2 Supported Graphene- A Surface Science Study
Research Track B (Ballroom #3)
Moderated by Michael Kjelland
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Jenna Duttenhefner, NDSU, Metabolic Reprogramming in PDAC: The Contributions of GSTP1 to Energy Metabolism and Lipid Homeostasis
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Lavinia Iancu, UND, Effects of Benzodiazepines on the Developmental Stages of Calliphora vicina Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 (Diptera: Calliphoridae)
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Gauthami Nair, NDSU, Dual targeting of ERK and PI3K pathways to impede pancreatic adenocarcinoma progression
concurrent presentation session 3
4:20 PM
ND-ACES and Related Research (Ballroom #1)
Moderated by Julia Zhao
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Karl Van Horsen, NDSU, Development of a 3D Printed Bioreactor to Simulate Tumor Metastasis in vitro
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Nimasha Samarawickrama, UND, Machine learning approaches for classifying temporal patterns and tracing causality in RNA-Seq datasets
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Mouhmad Elayyan, UND, A Theoretical Investigation of the Selectivity of Aza-Crown-Ether Structures Chelating Alkali Metal Cations for Potential Biosensing Applications
Research Track A (Ballroom #2)
Moderated by Giancarlo López-Martínez
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Sai Susmitha Guddanti, UND, Control of fast nuclear reactor for space propulsion using Reinforcement Learning
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Xiangfa Wu, NDSU, Massive Production of Functional Nanofibers for Use in Advanced Composites, Energy Conversion and Storage, and Environmental Protection
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Tiansong Qi, NDSU, An Enhanced Modeling Framework for Simulating Hydrologic Processes in a Depression-dominated Watershed
Research Track B (Ballroom #3)
Moderated by Brent Voels
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Sonia Tudjeu Chendjou, UND, Cocaine LC-MS Analysis in Insects for the Determination of Post-Mortem Interval
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FNU Tabish, UND, Buckling of imperfect unstiffened and stiffened cylindrical shells under external pressure
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Pooyan Vahidi Pashaki, NDSU, Threshold Optimization of in Situ HAPclay in Polymeric Scaffolds for Superior Biomechanical Tuning